CHAD! PLEASE READ!!!!

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Moderator

Ok, just went through the trouble of publishing an article. NO PICS SHOW UP!!!! I've asked about this issue ON MULTIPLE OCCASIONS! NO RESPONSE - either from the "contact us" person or Chad.

I wrote an article with the hope that the pics WOULD show up once published, as was suggested might happen by IAMNABIL, computer wizard techno-dude. He even took over my computer a while back to see what the problem was, to no avail.

Seriously, Chad! What the heck is the issue??? Why can I not get an answer after asking multiple times? The first time(s) I asked was not for myself, but for someone who really had something to contribute in terms of foamy construction.

Dude, I love this site. I'm a huge fan and supporter! All I want is to be able to post some pics in an article! Can I PLEASE get some help with this?

Site Moderator

I will pm Chad on FB and bring this to his attention, I am sure that this is an oversight that needs sorting out but at this time of year we are all probably very busy with xmas/new year/family type stuff!

Member

Agreed. I once tried to publish an article many moons ago, I think it was on how to make a cheap and easy table top foam cutter, that I was really proud of but anyway, I did the whole thing up submitted for approval and never heard back and it was never posted so I chalked it up as "It must of stunk" and did not live up to the standard but then I ran across a lot of folks having troubles with the Article thing. So Chad I think you have an ongoing problem or maybe evil gremlins not sure which.

Rotor Riot!

Executive Producer

Wow... I JUST SAW this! Colorex told me about this thread a few minutes ago.

Sorry guys. I can't tell you how thin I have been spread lately. Regarding the site... it's hanging on by a thread. I was abandoned by the development company that built it a few months back and then I was informed by the company hosting it that it will stop functioning if it grows too much! Because it was built on a proprietary CMS system and .NET my hands were tied and it wasn't possible to build on to what existed.
Immediately we started working on building a new site from the ground up! This is a huge expense and endeavor. It really sucks building something all over again only a few months after completing it the first time. Within 3 weeks we should have the new version done. It'll take care of many, many flaws that currently exist. I apologize for the delay and difficulties this creates.

The second most important priority was re-energizing the show. We felt that we were starting to stagnate and we needed to put a strong effort into creating new invigorating content that was inspiring and fun to watch.

Another big thing we're working on are speed build kits that we will be selling soon.

Also the holidays and my day job have been quite demanding the past couple of weeks.

I know it sounds like a bunch of excuses... I am so sorry that I haven't been as attentive as I normally am. I promise we are trying to give everyone a better Flite Test experience in 2013. Please just hold on for a couple more weeks. I think you'll be happy about some of the stuff we're working on.

Propaganda machine

I'll happily discard of the article-based website altogether for shows of the calibre we've seen this year. Fantastic. That sort of stuff will attract people to bring quality content to the right place - the forums. Google searches often come up with Flitetest forum threads for common problems/questions on RC.

Rotor Riot!

I'll happily discard of the article-based website altogether for shows of the calibre we've seen this year. Fantastic. That sort of stuff will attract people to bring quality content to the right place - the forums. Google searches often come up with Flitetest forum threads for common problems/questions on RC.

That sounds a bit drastic, but the article side of the website is getting filled up with junk... Like "look at me fly this plane" or look at my nightflyer"... When it should only contain well-written content that is useful and informative.

Executive Producer

I'll happily discard of the article-based website altogether for shows of the calibre we've seen this year. Fantastic. That sort of stuff will attract people to bring quality content to the right place - the forums. Google searches often come up with Flitetest forum threads for common problems/questions on RC.

I can't stop now... considering how much time I've spent refining the concept and persistence to move it closer to my original hope. How it currently exists is not how it will always be. Colorex has a point about it getting junked up. However, try looking at the past 7 months as an "Audition Period". We have been able to collect 1000's of sample articles from 100's of authors. The next evolution of the site will encourage these quality content providers to continue on. We will also empower them by giving them exclusive opportunities and tools to do a better job. Eventually we will have a robust community providing quality content that is easy to search and find what you are looking for.

Keep this in mind... we are trying to make information and inspiration easily obtainable by anyone. I still struggle to find what I'm looking for in forum threads! My goal is to have a site that allows you to find exactly what you are looking for easily within three actions (search, refine, click).

I know it's clunky right now. Please be patient, I'm trying desperately to create a free community that will make you all proud to be a part of.

Rotor Riot!

I agree on what Chad said. I like the article idea, getting straightforward guide-style information out to the beginner community. Imagine David Windestål's tricopter guide spread out as different suggestions from different people over a 400-post forum thread!

I think the hardest part is to find authors who know what they talk about AND know how to publish it. For this reason, I like the format of the about.com website - there is a group of people who only work optimizing articles (improving readability, style, grammar, etc).

Propaganda machine

I can see the attraction of the article framework. I just don't think many people understand the concept and chuck up any old garbage and label it 'just for fun'. I only write articles when I finally figure out something I've researched for a while, or attempted to build/modify something that takes a little more than intuition to get right.

What'd be really cool is a Wikipedia style format, where the host creates the topic to be written about and the community populates it. For example, how to flash a Turnigy 9x with an AVR cable, or how to build a helical antenna etc. etc. The community also picks what categories they want to write about (because the host can't possibly think of all of them) and the host decides if that's a good idea.

Anyhow, I'm glad to see it reaffirmed that a fix is being worked on. There is huge potential in the article format if it can be extracted well. You look at RCG, where to get the info you need to have to sift through 100s of pages of mostly garbage to find the gems...

Member

Simple way to filter the content and allow you to identify up and coming contributors. Any organization needs constant influx of new blood and new ideas or it dies, so you need to be able to bring in new contributors and recognize them. Recognized quality also drives other authors to up their game.

You split the articles between the major leagues and the farm team. Anyone can post to the farm team section. Authors identified as quality contributors can post straight to the major leagues. Could just be an additional Boolean data field that each article gets flagged with, so you can filter with it.

Then you set up guidelines for what promotes an article to the majors, with thresholds of ratings, influence, what have you. That way the users of the site can bring an author to prominence, whether done automatically or it notifies the owners. Obviously the owners could also promote someone or a specific article on their own, but having the wisdom of the crowd get a voice is a nice option.

Can also be used creatively to bring in guest authors, geographic proximity alone says try to get DJmoose come and visit at least once, bringing one of his smaller planes.

Site owner gets veto power obviously, since a handful would try to game the system and artificially pump up their ratings to meet any known or theorized threshold to gain the promotion.

I like the original idea behind the articles, having good quality information. However, I think the mark has been missed. There are some great articles, but much more look at my toy videos than good informative stuff.

I also don't like that the flitetest articles, which are the main reason I go there, are hidden amongst the rest. I'd rather they be featured and then have everyone else's stuff to search through.